


and all this life just feels like a series of dreams

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst and Feels, Canon Divergence - Red Wedding, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Imprisonment, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Not A Fix-It, Post - Red Wedding, Psychological Torture, Red Wedding, The Author Regrets Everything, everything is explained but anyway i'm really sorry about this, really people if you want the REAL happy ending/fix it look at the fic linked at the bottom of this, sort of, the mature rating over there is to be taken extra srsly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or: five times Robb Stark might have survived the Red Wedding.</p>
<p>UPDATE: chapter six (now added) is actually a sequel to chapter four I had been asked for on a tumblr prompt meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I’m a tomb, a corpse in a suit, trying to look a little alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenWithABeeThrone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/gifts).



> OKAY SO this is part of my last fic for got-exchange - originally it was these five sections plus a modern au thing that was there to even up the ridiculous angst I put poor Robb through, but then I realized that the last section was pretty much a standalone fic and since it was modern AU and pretty much detached from the rest I figured I'd post it separately (also because I might write more in that verse so it just made more sense to have it stand alone).
> 
> About this one specifically: my main prompt was _Robb: five ways he might've survived (or, uh, somehow lived after without turning into a Stoneheart-style zombie?) the Red Wedding--but not unscathed, never unscathed. That's right. I dare you. Do your worst and break my heart._ ... I might have done my worst. Also section number five fulfills _Robb/Theon: Sandra Cisneros, from "One Last Poem for Richard": "I forget the reason, but I loved you once, remember?" (Amnesiac!Robb? Yes. Please.)_ Both main title and section titles are from Gaslight Anthem songs, nothing belongs to me and I'm honestly really sorry I swear the modern AU one is nowhere near as sad as 90% of this fic is.
> 
> Also: really, heed the tags, but especially the character death one. Surviving the wedding doesn't mean surviving this entire thing in every occasion. /o\

Sometimes, he thinks _they should have left the both of us dead_.

It’s not all the time, because since he opened his eyes on a river bank when he should have, for all accounts, been dead, he hasn’t even found it in himself to care much either way. If he had, he would have stopped Beric Dondarrion when he tried to revive Robb’s mother and gave his life for it.

But that hadn’t happened, and now he stands in the shadows, not ever moving forward, just letting her have her vengeance even if there’s _something_ in it that makes him feel… not disturbed, not quite, because he doesn’t care, not really, but – somehow as if some part of him knows it’s wrong on such a fundamental level, he can’t bring himself to just not care about it at all.

Still, if it makes what’s left of her happy, or what passes for happy in her state, who is he to disagree? He can’t object to anything, not when he perfectly knows that _his_ mistakes brought the both of them here.

The rest of the Brotherhood leaves him pretty much alone these days – at the beginning they did ask for his opinion, but he had made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t interested in leading anyone anymore. And considering how easily they had switched to taking orders from his mother, or what remains of her, they most probably just wanted a purpose. Who cares if it’s killing Freys.

Robb wishes he cared. Especially since as she tells him every time they speak to each other, this entire spiel is to avenge him, too.

If only he _could_ care. But when Beric Dondarrion gave him the kiss of life, as they call it, he didn’t bring all of him back, and so – so he doesn’t. If it were for him, he’d leave the Freys and Lannisters to rot on their own and fight their stupid war for which he has sacrificed too much, but it’s not up to him.

He gave it up, hasn’t he, and he’s perfectly all right with it. Sometimes he wishes they would run into someone who needs the damned kiss of life themselves so he could do what Beric did and put an end to this stream of days where he barely sleeps, watches people die and thinks, _that’s not my mother_ , and doesn’t say it.

He doesn’t because sometimes she looks at him in a certain way and he thinks, _something of her’s still there_ , but he can’t bring himself to muster the force to bring it out.

Because he might not feel much of anything these days, but he remembers that the woman who was his mother would have been horrified at what she’s become, and if she’s still there somewhere, maybe it’s better that she stays buried for the sakes of them all. Sometimes he notices the red priest – Thoros, that was his name – looking at him as if he can imagine what goes through his head, but he never speaks to Robb and Robb doesn’t speak to him. Nor to anyone, not much.

He loses count of days and hanged men after not long, and he doesn’t know how much time has passed since they were revived when they find his mother’s knight.

Robb isn’t even there for most of it – the moment he hears his mother screeching when she learns that they captured some woman named Brienne of Tarth who’s going around the Riverlands with a Valyrian sword whose handle screams Lannister, he stands up and leaves their small camp without saying a word.

He might not care, but that had made him feel the closest to disturbed he’s ever felt since he didn’t really die, and that’s not – he doesn’t want to deal with that.

He just wants to carry out his existence in peace, or what passes for it, even if he knows it’s some really stupid notion. 

Hells, he should have realized back when he still had a crown on his head. Maybe he’d have saved himself and his family instead of dooming them all.

He doesn’t come back for a while. He lets a few days pass, and when he finally does come back, he’s not surprised to find three brand new nooses hanging from the trees surrounding the camp. No one asks where he’s been and his mother only glances at him disapprovingly, but says nothing – as if she speaks much, these days.

As if he has spoken a word in months, for that matter.

He doesn’t step forward when they bring in the woman and her companions. He doesn’t even hear much of the conversation – he hears the woman, Brienne, pleading for something, while the boy and the man who came with her merely look resigned. He hears his mother croak something that makes Brienne recognize her, and at that point he glances at her, and –

Hells, she _does_ look devastated. She’s crying, for that matter. As if she really cares that the abomination in front of her is the person she once swore herself to, and Robb has never met the woman before, though his mother did tell him about her, but – she’s an open book. Never mind that there might be a voice in the back of his mind telling him, _once you would have reacted like that, too_.

He doesn’t pay attention to Thoros’s explanations, even if he hears enough to be sure he isn’t being mentioned. 

He pays attention to what Brienne says, though, when she’s asked about her sword. 

“Lady Catelyn, I… you do not understand, Jaime… he saved me from being raped when the Bloody Mummers took us, and later he came back for me, he leapt into the bear pit empty-handed… I swear to you, he is not the man he was. He sent me after Sansa to keep her safe, he could not have had a part in the Red Wedding.”

 _Gods be good_ , Robb thinks, _she’s not lying, but she wasn’t lying when she cried before, either_. And then his mother brings up a couple of fingers to her throat, gives out that terrible rasp, and Robb doesn’t need anyone to translate it for him. He understands it.

"She says that you must choose. Take the sword and slay the Kingslayer, or be hanged for a betrayer. The sword or the noose, she says. _Choose,_ she says. Choose."

Robb waits to see what she will say – she looks devastated, all over again, and then she takes a ragged breath and looks up at his mother with large blue eyes full of tears, and her voice is shaky but clear as she says, "I will not make that choice."

“ _Hang them_ ,” the woman who once was Catelyn Stark says, and the thing is – Brienne doesn’t look afraid for herself at all, just for her two companions, but she doesn’t try to counter that. She doesn’t at all.

 _She’d die for that man_ , Robb thinks, and then the thought comes unbidden, _and didn’t I sign my death sentence for love, too_. If only he remembered clearly how that felt.

But –

“Wait,” he croaks as he steps forward.

All of a sudden, no one speaks a word. Not his mother, not any of the men in the Brotherhood, not Brienne of Tarth.

He still has his hood up, and he drags it downwards. Her eyes go so wide it would almost be funny, if Robb remembered how to laugh.

“My lord,” one of the men starts, but Robb raises one hand.

“I would have a word with her,” he says. His throat hurts. He hadn’t realized that not speaking for so long would have made this so hard. “Alone,” he adds. “Somehow, I don’t think she will try to run. Will you?”

He stares at her as she shakes her head.

“Fine, I guess,” Thoros says when no objection comes. “But not with that sword of hers.”

Brienne relinquishes it easy enough. Robb glances at his mother, who’s staring at the exchange without saying anything, but he can see that she disapproves.

Too bad. He will go to the bottom of this, now that he has started it.

“Come,” he tells Brienne, and motions for her to follow him. He walks until they’re out of sight, but near enough to come back to camp quickly; when he’s satisfied no one has followed, he leans against a tree.

“Sit,” he croaks again – she does at once, looking almost clumsy for how tall she is. When they sit, she’s still taller than he is, though not by much.

“I imagine you were not expecting this,” he says.

“No,” she admits in a small voice, looking down at her huge, dirty hands. He looks at her mauled cheek and feels disgusted for a moment – it’s gone just after, though.

“That story you told my mother,” he rasps again. He can see that she’s trying not to glance at the scars on his hands and his neck, not that he’d mind if she did. “I want to hear it. But I want to hear all of it.”

“What story?”

“The one explaining why Jaime Lannister is not _the man he was_. I want the truth. Tell me.”

She breathes in again and she does. He doesn’t interrupt her once. She tells him of their escape from Riverrun, she tells him of the Bloody Mummers, she tells him of the bear pit, she tells him of what Lannister told her when he gave her that sword, and he can see emotions change on her face with every part of the story – he almost envies her a bit for that. She wipes a tear when she speaks of the bear pit, and more than one when she speaks of the sword.

By the time she’s done, she has stopped trying – there are copious tear tracks on the whole side of her face, and Robb can’t help thinking, _well then, I can see why you would die for him_. Maybe he wouldn’t have bought this before he died, because back then he only thought of the man as dishonorable scum, but now that he just _doesn’t care_ , he can’t help thinking that maybe she’s right. People change, don’t they? And not necessarily for the best. Look at himself, look at most people who he thought of as friends, look at – look at his mother.

“I swear,” she says, “I would never – I would have never accepted that gift if I didn’t think he meant his words. I could have never.”

“I can see that,” he says. And then he takes a better look at her fingers wiping at her eyes, at her nose that’s been broken more than once, at her ruined face, and then he realizes something.

“How old are you?”

“My lord – sorry?”

“You heard it right the first time.”

“Twenty, my lord. Why?”

He hadn’t thought that would make him feel sick to his stomach for the first time since he came back.

But the moment she says it, the traitorous thoughts follow unbidden.

_She’s only three years older than you. She’s only trying to do the right thing at all costs, that much is obvious. And who was the idiot who once said that people should follow their heart wherever it takes them? Yes, exactly, that was you. And gods be good, she might be the one person in Westeros who actually has not betrayed your side openly, and now she should get hanged for it the same way you were killed for doing what she’s doing right now?_

“Tell me again. What would you do if you were to find my sister? You can think about that, by the way. No need to answer me at once.”

She swallows, thinks deeply about it. And then.

“I said I would find her a safe place,” she finally answers. “They said Cersei’s dungeons, but – I would never bring her back to King’s Landing. And – I think that I would try and go back to Tarth. It’s not far to reach and no one would think to look for a Stark there. No one would look for anything much, there.”

“And you would stay there to make sure she’s safe.”

“I would.”

“Even if it meant never seeing Lannister again?”

She grimaces. “That’s not the point. He wanted me to keep her safe. Not to bring her to King’s Landing. I swore an oath. We both did. He would know that. When he gave me this sword, he never said that _I should go back_.”

The thing is – she would do that. It would take an idiot not to see it. Maybe his mother doesn’t want to see it, maybe the Brotherhood doesn’t, but he can see that she’s not lying.

He can see that, because _wasn’t he just like her once_? Takes one to know one. _And our breed doesn’t survive easily_ , Robb thinks bitterly.

“And would you swear on your life he didn’t have anything to do with – with what Roose Bolton said just before he stuck a knife into my heart, my lady? Because I remember that even too well.” He moves his shirt, just to show her the scar, which is still red and never quite healed up, and looks up at her to see the reaction.

The moment she sees it, she mutters some excuses, brings herself up to her feet, moves to the nearest tree and throws up – he stares at her all the time, not that it particularly bothers him, but it only makes him more sure that she’s honestly not out to betray them.

“I’m sorry,” she says when she comes back.

“No offense taken,” he shrugs.

“What did Lord Bolton say?”

“That he sent his regards.”

And at that she snorts, and it’s an ugly sound coming from her. “That’s not – it was a jape. Actually – it was – all the contrary.”

“Do explain.”

“I told you that Bolton let him go to King’s Landing and then he came back for me. When he left – he told him to pass his regards to you. But – I swear, it was – Bolton actually sent compliments to _his_ Lord Father before letting him go. He answered with that. That’s – all that was to it. Before then – we had been on the road as I told you, and he could have never had contact with his relatives. He couldn’t have known. When we were told, he was as surprised as I was.”

“I see,” Robb says. He doesn’t add anything more, thinking it over, and then he stares back into Brienne’s face, and she looks moderately hopeful now, some way, and –

Very well.

“My lady,” he says tiredly, “let’s say that I believe you. Let’s say that I cannot possibly sway them all to let you go. Let’s say that I give you six moons to find my sister, bring her here and show us that you meant what you said, and that we take at least one of your companions as a hostage just in case. I don’t think it’s necessary, but they won’t accept it otherwise. What would you say to this?”

Some more tears spill from her eyes. “I would try my best, and if I couldn’t find your sister in six months I would come back and accept whichever decision you might take.”

“I suppose it’s reasonable. Well then, let’s go back. Don’t worry, I won’t let them hang you.”

“I – my lord, I cannot – _thank you_ , I –”

“My lady,” he interrupts her, aware of how tired his voice sounds. “I used to be like you once. I can’t ever be like that again, but I’m not going to let them kill someone who doesn’t deserve that in the slightest. Find my sister, bring her to your island and when you find her, tell her I’m sorry I couldn’t come for her when she needed it.”

“But if I am to bring her here, couldn’t you tell her yourself?”

Robb shakes his head.

“Brienne of Tarth, if I only could wish for one thing in this world, it would be for both me and _her_ to be dead before six moons come to pass. This is no life and I hate every second of it. And if you ever see Lannister again, see to make use of yours. No man who jumps into a bear pit without weapons is doing that out of the goodness of their heart.”

“My lord –”

“That was all I had to say.”

“I swear to you –”

“I don’t need more oaths. We’re done here.”

She swallows and follows him back to the camp, where everyone is of course staring at them. Robb takes in a breath he doesn’t need.

“I believe her.”

“But my lord –”

“You can’t possibly –”

“The lady has said –”

“She can’t –”

“ _I believe her_ ,” he says again, silencing everyone else and the hiss coming from his mother. “Her story makes sense. She’s not lying. And I think we should let her prove it.”

“How?” Thoros asks – at least one of them is being cooperative.

“Let her go with one of the men. We’re keeping the other one for a hostage. She’s to come back in six moons, with my sister or not. She’s said she will. And I think she’s going to.”

“With all due respect –” The man with the Hound’s helmet starts, not that Robb’s ever learned his name, and Robb moves up next to him, plenty aware the scar on his chest is still visibly showing.

“ _With all due respect_ , I was also wronged by all the people we’re hanging, and you haven’t seen me objecting once. May I have my own bloody saying, ser?”

The man backtracks – everyone is silent now, and Robb feels tired all over again.

He never wanted this again, but he supposes he will have to deal with it.

“Thoros, give her back the sword. My lady, take the one you would bring with you and go. Now.”

Brienne is quick to grab back her sword and to latch at the boy’s arm, sending the man an apologetic stare – he doesn’t seem too fazed by her choice, though, before she leaves quickly dragging the boy with her.

Well, good.

“ _Why_?” 

Suddenly he grimaces the moment he hears his mother speak, and he knew she would, but he had hoped she’d do it now that he’s sent Brienne away.

He sighs and stares at her first, at the others later.

“Because _that_ ,” he finally says as he yanks one of the nooses downwards, “is not who I was, and it’s not who you were, and from what I hear Thoros say from time to time, it’s not what you all used to be. From what I remember, you wanted to fight for commoners and make sure they wouldn’t be wronged too much during the war, or at least avenge them. I never accepted a crown for revenge only. And I never killed anyone so easily. Especially not anyone who was _on my side_. I let her go because she was telling the truth and because she deserved a chance. What are you going to do about it, kill me? Because if you would, believe me, I would be the most grateful man on this earth.”

No one answers. He glances at his mother, again, and she’s staring at him with eyes that are more surprised than angry, and he knows he might have just brought back that part of hers that he hoped would sleep forever.

He doesn’t know if he should hope for it or not, but he supposes he should talk to her and be prepared for whatever comes of it.

He also knows that he’s just put himself in a position he hoped he never would be in, again.

Well, he muses, it’s really true that you can never escape certain things in life or death.

“Think about it,” he says. “I – I think I need to speak to her. I’ll be back soon. And put those ropes away. No one is getting hanged for now.”

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then Thoros goes to take the noose down.

And as much as seeing someone follow one of his commands makes him wish he had kept his mouth shut, Robb knows it’s no use regretting it now.

He still wishes he could just die once and for all.

But today’s not that day.


	2. cross your hard heart and hope to die

Seven hells, _Sandor Clegane thinks as he looks frantically around the yard, searching for the damned girl_. Where did she go? I should have just knocked her out.

_He should have. But she’s nowhere to be seen, she escaped from his sight while he was trying to get some Frey soldier off him. Where the hell did she go?_

_Then he sees that there’s a cage open with corpses around it._

_Mauled corpses._

_Then he hears a howl from somewhere inside that castle._

_Before moving his attention to more pressing matters, specifically getting alive out of the bloody yard, he hopes that whatever she did doesn’t kill her._

_Later, he’ll find confirmation that he’s only ever been right in thinking hoping is worth nothing._

\--

It happens in a moment.

Really, it does.

First, Robb screams as he sees Lothar Frey slash his mother’s throat – he said something like _at least this will shut her up for good_ before doing that. He tugs at the arrow in his shoulder, searching for a sword, and he can only hear Walder Frey laughing, when –

The door of the hall slams open.

“Robb!”

“Arya?” He screams back as he sees Grey Wind leap into the hall, slashing left and right, Arya at his side with a sword in her hand, and _why is she here how is she here they said she was dead she should never have been here_ , and for a moment he thinks _maybe there is a chance yet_ , but –

Arya runs towards him, he tries to go towards her, and then some Frey soldier that had just been standing next to the door sees her, and he takes out his sword and moves in front of her, and it goes just right through her stomach, and her eyes go glassy at once and she crumples to the ground.

_No_ , he thinks, _no, no, no_.

He falls on his knees next to her, and it’s too late.

She’s dead.

She’s dead, and he couldn’t even say goodbye, and Grey Wind is howling at his side, and –

And then he doesn’t know what happens, but he’s angry. He’s _angry_ , angry in ways he’s never been before even if he could have been, and he’s never let that feeling that sometimes came upon him prevail, a feeling that said to just _let go and give them all what they deserve_ , but this is too much, this is _too fucking much_ , and the moment someone moves to his left and tries to stab at him, he turns and wraps his hands around the man’s neck and –

He never knew it was so easy to kill someone like this.

He takes the sword the man had been trying to slash at him with, wraps his fingers around the hilt and whatever that pull wants him to do, he’s not going to stop it.

He lets go.

\--

When Robb Stark walks out of the hall in the Twins with his direwolf at his side, his mother’s corpse in his arms, his sister’s on the direwolf’s back and a few northern survivors following him, he’s covered in blood. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t red. Some soldiers do try to sneak up on him, but then they look at what he’s left behind and they run instead.

The hall is littered in corpses. Some slashed, some mauled, but they are all dead, and the northern lords look absolutely terrified.

What happens later is not the kind of story that Greatjon Umber will tell his nephews years later after a few pints of ale.

It’s a story he will only tell a few trusted men, and most of them will think that it really must have taken a toll on him, if the _Greatjon_ sounded scared out of his wits when telling what the King in the North did after.

He walked up to a window leading into the yard where Frey soldiers were busy killing Stark men. The direwolf had wailed loud enough that everyone had looked up at him.

And Stark had said, calmly and with a coldness to his tone that no one had ever heard before from him, _I killed everyone in the main hall and if you don’t put down your arms right now I’ll come down and kill every single traitor in this castle._

“Gods be good,” Greatjon will say every time he tells that story, “they dropped their weapons at once.”

\--

This is what happens after the Twins.

Robb Stark rounds up his remaining bannermen after barely washing blood off his face.

“I’m going to King’s Landing,” he says. “And I’m paying Tywin Lannister the same service he paid me. You can come or not, it makes no difference to me. And I’m leaving now.”

The tone admits no discussion, and no one stays behind.

The king in the North doesn’t sleep much, people say. When he does, no one wants to be near his tent. He screams, people say, but not like people usually scream during a nightmare.

No one ever comments on the fact that among the things he says, there’s usually, _what have I done_.

\--

The northern army meets no resistance as it takes King’s Landing not long later. When northern soldiers enter the streets, they only meet commoners who are only too happy to let them through. The Red Keep is of course defended, no one could have left without the risk of running into enemies on the road, but it doesn’t stay defended for long. The direwolf makes quick work of the guards outside with minimal help from other soldiers.

(People said, later, that if you glanced at Robb Stark, you’d see him staring into nothing, as if he weren’t really there.)

When Robb Stark walks inside the Red Keep, he wastes no time talking. First he retrieves his sister, who had fled her own room to meet him, then he goes straight for the Iron Throne.

(A couple servants swear on their lives that the king screamed when Stark walked inside the room. Theirs is the only account of what happened, as they were the only survivors – they say that Stark first told the king that he should see what _he_ had seen, and cut the queen’s throat in front of his eyes before gutting him. Then he had looked for Tywin Lannister in the Hand’s tower. The body fell out of the window and no one dared retrieve it.)

The only Lannister who survives the storm of King’s Landing is Tyrion – Stark tells him that he wouldn’t have made an exception, but his sister put in a good word and he remembers that he paid them a favor once upon a time, so he’s allowed to go to the Wall if he so wishes, otherwise it’s his sword. The man is quick to accept the offer.

(People say that as mad as Stark looks, at least he kept that bargain. Which is more than could be said for Joffrey Baratheon.)

Everyone is surprised when, after getting rid of the Kingsguard and the city watch in similar manner, Stark asks for an audience with Stannis Baratheon.

A _public_ audience.

Baratheon goes, not looking particularly pleased about it.

They meet in front of Baelor’s sept, where Ned Stark had died.

“I have an offer for you,” Robb says. It’s obvious that Stannis doesn’t like not having the upper hand, but there’s nothing else he can do, not when there’s a growling direwolf in front of him. “You can take King’s Landing and the south for all I care. The North stays separate and I don’t want to see a raven from any other realm as long as I live. Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Baratheon says at once. He might not like it, people think, but he’s not a fool.

Stark nods, takes his sister and any other northerner that was in the city and leaves it an hour later.

(After witnessing that exchange, not one person in King’s Landing feels like they got a bad deal, and that’s most probably how, going against any prediction, Stannis Baratheon becomes the best liked monarch by the commoners since way before Aerys Targaryen.)

\--

Sansa Stark hears her brother screaming at night for the first time on the fourth day as they make their way back to Riverrun – they will head for Winterfell later.

Differently from the rest of the camp, she goes straight inside his tent and finds him sitting up on his bedroll, tears covering his cheeks, dark bags under his eyes and for a moment, when he looks at her, she thinks _that’s not him at all_.

But then his face crumples in an expression of despair and his hands close into tight, tight fist.

“It was my fault,” he sobs a moment later.

“It couldn’t have been,” she answers, imagining what he’s talking about. “You couldn’t have known, they _broke guest right_ –”

“You don’t understand,” he interrupts. “They told you. About what I did?”

“They said you turned into a wolf and you were some kind of monster,” she replies. “I didn’t believe –”

“They weren’t wrong,” he blurts. “Sansa, you don’t – you don’t understand. Between Grey Wind and me – there wasn’t one person left alive in that entire room. But _I don’t remember it_.”

“Robb –”

“I don’t remember _one single thing_ except how it felt. And – no, sometimes I think I know what happened, I’m sure that they died before I could lift a hand, but – but I can’t be sure.”

“Of what you can’t be sure?” Sansa asks, her voice shaking.

“What if _I_ killed them, too? Or if not Mother –”

She wants to say it’s impossible, she wants to say he could never, but the way he says it – it looks like he really doesn’t remember.

“No, you can’t.”

“That’s what you say,” he laughs, and flinches when she reaches out to take his hand.

\--

Before they reach Riverrun, Robb calls the Greatjon at his side and speaks to him for a while. Then he says he’ll go straight for Winterfell.

Three days later, his lady wife is married to Patrek Mallister in a small ceremony. Sansa is there to see it. Jeyne Westerling had accepted the decision wearily but asked why, she would not have begrudged Robb anything, and Sansa hears the Greatjon when he answers her, sounding entirely sincere in his contriteness.

“My lady,” he says, “he said it wouldn’t be fair to you. And from what I have seen – he’s right.”

Sansa can’t help remembering that time they saw each other when she left Winterfell, when he had snowflakes in his hair and was smiling at her, and she thinks, _what did they do to you_?

\--

Winterfell is half in ruins when she reaches it. Robb has been there for a while and she finds him in the main hall, sitting on their father’s seat, the direwolf at his feet and parchments on his lap. It doesn’t look like being back home has done him any good. The bags under his eyes are darker and he’s thinner, and even if he smiles at her when she walks inside she can see he doesn’t feel it.

“I can’t do this,” he tells her as she moves closer.

“Robb –”

“I _can’t_. And – I need you to come over here.”

She does. He stands up, a stack of parchments in between his shaking hands.

She takes them as he hands the stack over, taking just one.

“Read this,” he tells her, showing it.

It’s a will, she sees. And it was signed just before the Red Wedding, from what she sees. It disinherits her, which she had expected – she was a Lannister, wasn’t she? – and nominated Jon heir, which also was reasonable to expect.

“I don’t understand.”

He rips it in half, then four parts, then eight.

“This isn’t valid anymore. Those papers I just gave you, they make you my heir. And I made sure to sign a few others allowing women to be queens of this ream without a husband, if they so wish.”

“Robb, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to the Wall.”

“ _What_?”

“You heard me. I can’t do this anymore, I couldn’t do it in the first place and I don’t – I can’t live with what I did.”

“They _tried to murder you_ ,” Sansa tries to argue, and he smiles, but there’s no mirth in it.

“I didn’t say I regretted doing it. I’m saying I can’t live with it. It’s not the same thing. Please,” he keeps on. “I can’t.”

She wants to tell him that he can’t leave just when she finally has him back, but she thinks she understands, and so she puts her arms around his shoulders the way she hadn’t when he stayed behind that first time.

She’s not surprised when he barely even touches her back.

\--

He leaves in the night, not telling anyone.

A few weeks later, the Greatjon asks her what she intends to do with Bolton’s bastard – he’s hiding up in the Dreadfort and it’s the only place not back under Stark control after Robb drove out the Ironborns – he had taken care of that while Sansa attended Jeyne Westerling’s wedding in his place.

Sansa tells the Greatjon to move on the Dreadfort, leaving him free reign of the army, and to not bother bringing Bolton in if he thinks he deserves to die.

Days later, they come back victorious with a prisoner that she’s told she might want to deal with herself.

\--

Turns out it’s _Theon_ of all people, and Sansa wouldn’t have recognized him if she hadn’t been told before. She questions him, and feels sick throughout the entire ordeal, and she can’t help thinking that killing him would be putting him out of his misery as she looks down at his maimed hands and feet.

When he’s done telling his story, she doesn’t even know what she should do. If anything, Robb should be here to decide, since it was _him_ that Theon betrayed, right?

And then.

“They said he went to the Wall.” Theon’s voice is small as it breaks the silence between them.

“He did. Why do you ask?”

For a moment, Theon doesn’t answer. And then –

“I spent months hoping he’d come and take my head.”

“ _What_?”

“It was the preferable alternative,” he says. Sansa wishes he didn’t sound this calm – it’s making her feel queasy.

“Does this question have a point?” Sansa asks, but then he looks at her for a moment before he looks down at his hands.

Oh, gods.

“You want to go there,” she says, not even trying to guess the size of his death wish.

“If you would be so kind to grant it to me.”

She shouldn’t. She should let the Greatjon kill him. But – didn’t Father always say that if you condemn someone to death you should swing the sword? She looks at Theon, at his frail frame, at his thin body, at his maimed hands and his gray-ish hair, and she thinks, _am I not condemning him anyway, if he goes_?

“Very well,” she says. “With this cold and with the news I hear, the only thing I’m granting you is a longer and more painful death if I send you up there. I don’t see any reason to object.”

He breaks down in grateful tears and she has to leave the room.

\--

It’s cold the morning Theon leaves with a couple guards – she ordered them to just let him arrive there, her brother might want to kill him with his own hands and they shouldn’t try to accelerate the process.

She doesn’t even bother wiping out the tears turning into frail ice along her cheeks with every gust of cold wind.


	3. we were ever the sons of regret

Maybe it’s not a given, that among everything that he could be pondering in his last moments of life, the one thing he can think of is, _I can’t let her die in front of me, too_.

There are many things Robb Stark will regret from this moment on. One he already regrets – insisting that Jeyne come to the wedding.

But opening his mouth and screaming, “ _She_ has done nothing wrong,” is not one of them.

The two arrows sticking from his shoulder and leg are causing enough pain that he wants to hurl, and he knows it’s probably useless having said it when Roose Bolton has a knife to his neck, Lothar Frey has one to Jeyne’s back and his mother’s body is lying motionless on the ground.

But suddenly, Walder Frey laughs harder and doesn’t motion for his damned son to proceed.

“Really. _She_ is the one you married, _Your Grace_. I think she has done something wrong. Still, I’m curious. What do you think you’re accomplishing with this?”

“Please,” he sobs, “you can’t think this is the best way to – to get revenge. I swear – just let her live. You can do what you want with me.”

“I should hope you won’t swear that on your _honor_ ,” Frey says, and he looks like he will have Jeyne killed – she’s crying openly, and Robb wants to tell her that he’s sorry except that he won’t have time, most probably, when –

“Wait a moment,” Roose Bolton interrupts, his voice sounding so cold it sends a shiver down Robb’s spine. “And what if he wasn’t wrong?”

“What?”

“My lord Frey,” Bolton keeps on, and Robb can hear him smiling. “I think I have a better plan. And I don’t think he will need to swear on anything.”

“Do tell,” Walder Frey says as the drums stop playing.

And as Bolton does tell, Robb realizes that he might not regret having spoken first, but he _will_ regret what he has just promised.

\--

The room they give him has a window, and that’s about the only good thing about it. The door is always locked, except for when a maid comes bringing food and water, or when Bolton comes in with parchments.

_It’s that easy. You sign, she and the other hostages live. You don’t, you all die, and I might personally call my son to make sure it’s not quick. Understood?_

As if he has a choice.

After the fourth parchment he signs through his tears, he thinks, _I should have let them kill me first_.

\--

He sees no one else. Bolton doesn’t even try to not look smug at every parchment handed back. Sometimes he brings Tywin Lannister’s regards. Robb doesn’t even try asking how his wife is doing – he won’t receive an answer other than _people here do respect their pacts, unlike you_.

He barely even sleeps at night – most times, he wakes up screaming. He’ll hear the sound of those drums, or see his mother’s corpse hitting the water in front of his eyes for the umpteenth time, or see Jeyne’s face full of tears as bodies fell all around them, or feel blood sticking all over his hands.

By the time three months have passed, he has signed away most of his rights to Tywin Lannister, signed away most of the North to him for that matter, given up on any title and bent the knee to Joffrey Baratheon, who had come to the Twins especially for that.

It was a matter of moments, of course. He was escorted downstairs, did his bidding, received spit on his face for acknowledgment, was walked up again – he couldn’t see Jeyne, not this time, but some Northern lords had to attend too, and he’s sure he doesn’t imagine the deep disappointment on their faces.

_And what did you expect?_ , he wanted to scream. _You put me there, you decided it was my rightful place, I did my best, I couldn’t do any better, and what do you expect me to do now? She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve any of it._

He didn’t say any of that.

At the first whisper of _well I’d say the king who sold off the North is more suited than king who lost the North_ he heard as he’s walked out of the room, he thought that he couldn’t find a fault in that reasoning.

Then he was back in his prison of a room, looking out at the damned river and wondering if it wouldn’t just be easier to jump into it, just to find out that the window was locked and no key was anywhere to be found.

Of course it wouldn’t be.

\--

“No,” he said as he reads the parchment, not long later.

“Excuse me, _your Grace_?”

“Not this. I will die before I do this.”

Bolton smiles, moves up a bit closer and looks at Robb straight in the eyes, that small smile still curling his lips upwards.

“I don’t think you understand. That’s not your decision. You say no, or you die before doing it… well, your pretty little bride might be introduced to my bastard son before we send her home.”

He must see the relief showing up on Robb’s face at the notion that they might set her free, along with the horror at the prospect of her being anywhere near Ramsay Bolton.

“See? It’s not that complicated. Also, you might even go back home and we might even let you stay there. Or we can just send a raven to Winterfell and recall Ramsay here – surely you wouldn’t want her skin as a wedding present, would you? Because the wedding will happen regardless of what you do. _Your Grace_. Never mind that – well, I can tell you a secret, I suppose. No one knows where your sister is. The girl is merely going to substitute her. And we only need you to say that she is in fact your sister.”

Robb barely even sees the paper through his tears as he signs the damned page.

_I’m sorry_ , he thinks, _whoever you are that I just condemned, I swear I’ll try to do something. Anything. But I can’t let them do that to Jeyne._

Never mind that the bare idea of finally leaving this godsforsaken castle is temping enough on its own, even if it means condemning a poor innocent girl to marry a monster.

“Excellent,” Bolton says as he takes the parchment. “I’ll see that your queen is left free to go back to her home.”

Robb exhales in relief.

“Where I am sure she will be elated to find out that she’s been promised to a Lannister of her mother’s choosing.”

The relief turns into utter disgust in a moment.

“ _What_?”

“Oh, she wasn’t told, and she had no clue up until now, but her mother had been helping us planning that little wedding feast. Sure, she hadn’t thought her daughter would attend in the first place, and we didn’t tell her that if it had to happen, we would have killed her, but what she knows won’t hurt her. And she had a nice deal with Lord Tywin that he will only be too happy to honor. See you on the morrow, _your Grace_. And if you dare doing anything that might end up with your death, well, she’s not going to reach the Westerlands either.”

Bolton locks the door behind him as Robb sits still in his chair, and when the tears come a moment later, he doesn’t even try to stop them.

(Some commoners who had been passing near the Twins that night, months later will swear on their ancestors’ souls that they heard someone crying so hard they might have been howling.)

\--

Winterfell is in ruins when they finally reach it.

He had known.

He also can’t find it in himself to cry for it, because he exhausted all of his tears that night he signed the wedding agreement.

He stops his horse in front of the gate, though, looking at the ruined yard, at the burned towers, at the desolation spreading around his ancestral home, which looked entirely more welcoming once upon a time. He wants to cry.

And then Ramsay Bolton comes out of the castle, smiling like this is the best day of his entire life, and Robb has never met the man before but he can’t help the shudder of revulsion rising through his stomach.

“But look at who’s _finally_ here,” Ramsay says as he moves closer, his ugly grin plastered all over his face. “I couldn’t wait to finally meet you, _Your Grace._ ”

“Rest assured that the feeling is not mutual,” Robb replies without even trying to hide his disgust – after all, there hasn’t been an agreement saying that he should have been nice to his jailers, has it?

“I had imagined it would not be,” Ramsay replies – he doesn’t look at all disappointed. More than that, amused. “After all, coming back home and finding it like _this_ might not put someone in a good mood. Which is why I figured that after all your cooperation, you deserved a gift.”

“I don’t want any gifts from you. I just want to be out of your sight.”

“Really? Because I thought you might want to see the person who did this to your precious castle, _Your Grace_. And I can assure you, I punished them in your stead without sparing them a thing.”

Robb stops dead in his tracks.

He remembers Bolton bringing him _a piece of Theon’s skin_.

“You did _what_?” Robb breathes.

“I will be only too happy to show you,” Ramsay grins, and Robb wants to vomit.

That’s not the grin of someone sane.

\--

“No,” Robb says not long later.

“Oh, _yes_. I will admit, it’s been some of my best work. What would you say to that, _Reek_?”

“Of course it was, m’lord,” Theon answers in a tiny, miserable voice. Robb can hear he hasn’t drank in a while from how hoarse he sounds, and just what he’s seeing in the candlelight is enough to make him want to vomit, but then –

Then he moves up the candle a tiny bit, and sees that Theon’s actually _chained to the wall with a fucking collar_ , and –

Robb doesn’t manage to get even out of the dungeons before vomiting in an empty cell. He hears steps behind him.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Ramsay says, “wasn’t that what anyone might have wanted?”

_No, you miserable bastard_ , Robb wants to say.

“Not what _I_ would have wanted,” he rasps before standing up.

“Well, well, too bad. And now I think you should go upstairs. After all, the wedding is in a few days and you should be rested for it. As he should.”

“ _He_?”

“Of course he’s going to attend. No better occasion to show how the mighty have fallen, right? And in your presence, nonetheless. Everyone will be able to see how much of a favor I paid you, Your Grace.”

Robb vomits again the moment he’s out in the yard.

\--

The only good thing about this wretched situation is that he’s not confined in his room – Bolton decided that since they filled the castle with people loyal to him, it would only make him more miserable if he could have free reign of a home that’s not his anymore if not on paper, and won’t be for much longer.

So the next day, when both Boltons are off dealing with wedding preparations, he heads for the dungeons.

To find them empty.

_What in the seven hells_ , he thinks as he walks out. He asks a guard about the prisoner. The guard shrugs.

“That one? Lord Bolton said ‘twas too cold down there and they didn’t want him dead before the wedding. Might be he’s in the yard.”

_In the yard_? Why would it be any less cold?

Then Robb walks into the yard and sees why.

Of course it would be less cold if you slept with the dogs.

He takes in a deep breath, walks up to the pile of them and lets out a breath of relief when the dogs just walk away instead of trying to devour him – they all look murderous and he wouldn’t want to be near any of them, but it seems like they aren’t going to try and jump him yet.

Theon shudders for the cold when he loses the contact, and then he blinks his eyes open, and –

“No,” he says, “no, it can’t be, it can’t –”

“Theon?” Robb interrupts.

For a moment they stare at each other, and Robb tries not to recoil at the stench surrounding the two of them.

And then.

“Robb?” Theon whispers, his voice breaking from the first sound, and Robb doesn’t even try to stop himself from crying.

“Yes,” he says, “yes, it’s me.”

And then –

“I – I guess I see why you’re here,” Theon croaks, and then moves up on his knees and bares his throat.

“Wait, what –”

“Do it,” Theon whispers. “Do it if you must.”

And then Robb realizes what Theon’s implying.

“No, wait, I’m not – I didn’t come to kill you, I’m not –”

“You – you didn’t?”

Gods, he sounds _disappointed_?

Robb kneels in the mud next to him. “Gods, no, do you think – I couldn’t, not after – what did he even do to you?”

“I – I hoped you might,” Theon says then.

“How about you tell me what happened instead?”

And so Theon tells him, right there in the yard, his voice breaking more often than not, and he says he’s sorry more often than he says anything else, but Robb understands enough, and horror fills his gut – gods, so he did the bidding of the people who actually destroyed his home in the first place? He was such a fool.

Such a bloody fool. And now he’s pretty much bestowing his rights on some poor commoner girl who’s supposed to pass for his sister, and after that he’s plenty sure he’s going to find poison in his food because why would they need him alive anymore? Never mind that him being alive by now is a hindrance to his brothers or sisters, if they ever have a chance to take back what he had to give away.

_How do I fix this_ , he thinks, and then he sees it.

“Wait, he lets you go around with a knife?” Robb asks.

Theon looks up at him, surprised, obviously not expecting that to be the first thing Robb tells him after he’s done speaking.

“He does,” he sobs. “Because he knows I couldn’t use it on him. Why?”

Robb thinks about it. He thinks about it hard, and then he realizes that maybe there is a way out.

“Because I think I can fix this mess,” Robb says.

“How?”

“How much do you know?”

Turns out, Theon knows more than enough about his current situation, thanks to Ramsay Bolton boasting it out loud.

“Right,” Robb says when he realizes exactly how much Theon knows. “Then you know that I made a mess out of everything. No, don’t deny it. I did. And as long as I am alive those parchments I signed have value.”

“Robb, you aren’t saying –”

“I’m saying that I will go back to my room and write a few different parchments straightening the situation out. I will have them sent to the Wall because Jon is there and he will keep them safe, and if I do it before they’re back no one will notice a few missing ravens. Then – then before the wedding – I imagine that there might be an occasion where both you and I might be alone with _them_. If there’s not, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Robb –”

“And if you’re willing to give me that knife, I’m going to kill the both of them and myself after I’m done.”

“You _can’t_ ,” Theon rasps again, and for someone who supposedly betrayed him, he sounds pretty damned concerned.

“I have to,” Robb says, and he knows he sounds hysterical, but he’s way beyond caring. “I can’t go to the Wall. I mucked it up too much. As long as I’m alive, my legacy is completely tainted. And what I’d do, anyway? I see people I trusted die in front of me every damned night, among which my mother, I fucking bent the knee to _Joffrey Baratheon_ , what am I supposed to do to put a dent in their plans? It all hinged on what they made me do. If I’m not there anymore it’s not valid. Please –”

“No,” Theon says, “you shouldn’t – you shouldn’t tell _that_ to me. Not – I’ll do whatever you want,” he sobs. “Just – just please, I know I can’t presume to ask you anything, but – if you really want to do it then kill me first.”

For a moment, neither of them says a thing.

“Sorry, what –”

“Robb, don’t pretend you didn’t understand it. _Look at me_. I don’t know how you haven’t strangled me yet, but you’d be just the first in line who has reasons to. If my relatives ever tried to ransom me, I don’t know, but what use would I be to anyone? Didn’t take me long to realize I should have been with you the whole time. I couldn’t – I chose wrong. I know I chose wrong. I spent months hoping you’d take the Dreadfort and take my head so it would just be over. I can’t – I tried more than once and I lost fingers for it. I don’t know if I could try again, but – _please take me with you_.”

Robb can only think that it’s a bitter, bitter irony that the two of them are openly crying now, and he thinks _at least I was right when I thought he wouldn’t do such a thing to me without reasons_.

His hands are shaking as he takes Theon’s maimed fingers in between his own.

“All right,” he breathes, “all right, I will. I’m just – I’m sorry it all went so wrong,” he says, choking on the words.

“Believe me, you’re not the only one,” Theon says, and – he sounds relieved?

Robb doesn’t ask and stands there until he hears guards moving nearby – better not letting them find him in such a compromising position.

“I’ll try to come again, if I can,” Robb whispers. “If I can’t – well. See you before the wedding, then.”

Theon nods at him, and Robb is sure he’s seen broken teeth through the flimsy smile that dies on his lips after a moment, and when he goes back up to his room, he doesn’t try to stop himself from crying, either.

\--

The following morning, he locks the door. He writes down a will ultimately invalidating all the decisions he took since the Red Wedding. He reinstates his sister as his legitimate heir and legitimates Jon all over again in case that particular will got lost. He copies it thrice.

Then he takes a fresh parchment and grabs the quill for the last time.

\--

_Dear Jon,_

_I hope this reaches you along with the rest of the ravens. I heard you were made Lord Commander – it was about the only good thing I have heard in the last few months. I realize that you cannot interfere with realm matters, which is why I’m asking you this out of the goodness of your heart, but I beg you, keep one those wills for yourself and send one of them to King’s Landing, and the third to whoever seems fit to you in the aftermath of what I will do. I trust your judgment. I know I made a complete mess out of everything and I just hope this can fix it. If not, and if you ever see our siblings again, please tell them that I’m horribly sorry for this. I will tell Father myself, I suppose._

_I’m sorry I could never come to visit you at the Wall with Bran like I thought I might once. I’m sure that you will do great things – after all, black was always your color, wasn’t it?_

_Robb_

\--

He goes to the ravens’ cages with all his parchment sealed. There aren’t as many ravens as last time, seven hells, but he thinks he can use a couple and no one will notice that they’re missing. He ties two messages to each, mentally thanks Luwin for having taught all of them to care for the birds, and sends them off to the Wall.

And just in time – both Boltons come back hours later with a small following behind them, and Robb can see a poor girl dressed in white in the back of it.

\--

He recognizes Jeyne Poole at once, and she recognizes him, and he hopes that the panicked look he sends her way when Ramsay tells him _he should be glad to see his sister again_ shows her that he’d not going to go along with this.

He really does hope that, because the wedding is tomorrow and he won’t be able to speak to her until then.

Nor to Theon, or so it seems.

That night, he doesn’t sleep.

He knows he would just dream of the wedding and of his parents’ disappointed glances.

When he sun rises, he asks for a bath to be brought up. He takes care to wash thoroughly, and wears the best clothes he can find – no point in making them assume he’s not taking this seriously.

Roose Bolton comes to collect him, of course.

Robb takes a deep breath and hopes that he can fool him.

“ _My lord_ ,” he hisses, “if I may, I have a request.”

“Do you. Well, considering your behavior until now, I might hear it out, at least. Please, do speak.”

His behavior. Robb wants to vomit.

“I wish to speak with Greyjoy before doing my duty. I didn’t have a chance after our first meeting and I think I would like to tell him exactly what I think of his actions. It might put me in a better mood, at least.”

It’s not even a lie, technically.

Bolton ponders it.

“I suppose there’s no harm in letting you have some consolations, Your Grace. Very well, do follow me.”

Robb does. They reach what used to be his father and mother’s bedroom – of course they would have the bedding there.

“Ramsay, you have a visitor.”

Robb almost wants to vomit as he walks inside – the room reeks of sex and blood, not that he had expected any different. Ramsay is still dressing, his chest bare, and Theon – who has taken a bath as well, because he doesn’t reek that much himself anymore – is standing next to him, trembling all over, hair so white in the morning sun that Robb feels almost sick.

“Oh. And what does His Grace want?”

“To have a few words with our common prisoner,” Robb hisses. “You might leave me this one small satisfaction, can’t you?”

Ramsay snorts, finding the situation very hilarious, apparently.

_Laugh all you want_ , Robb thinks, _you won’t a moment from now_.

“Please. But Reek, don’t you move. I want you right when I can hear you.”

Theon swallows, and he’s shaking so much that Robb thinks he might fall over any moment.

Robb takes a couple steps towards him, then a couple more until they’re face to face. Ramsay is looking at them, still laughing to himself.

“Isn’t this a _touching_ reunion,” he says.

“Might be,” Robb hisses, and then he looks at Theon and gives him the tiniest nod and holds his hand out, thinking _please don’t falter now please just do it_ –

The knife is in his hand a moment later.

Before Ramsay can say a thing, because he notices at once, Robb turns and plunges it in his throat, not letting himself grimace when blood sprays all over his face.

And then he yanks it out and runs for the door, where Roose is already going for his sword, but a sword is heavy and Robb is a lot faster than that, and maybe he should say something, but he can’t afford to waste time, and so he just plunges the knife right over the man’s heart in one go – Bolton’s hand loses his grip on the sword handle in a moment and falls down on the ground with a dull thud.

Robb’s hands are completely covered in blood – great, great, exactly what he didn’t need right now – and he’s quick to slam the door closed and lock it.

He breathes in once, twice, then runs to the other side of the bed – Theon’s staring down at Ramsay’s lifeless body. There’s a pool of blood all over the floor. Robb thinks he might be sick.

“Robb?”

“It’s – it’s too much like – never mind.” He cleans off the bloody dagger on his cloak once, twice, and then his hands shake so much he can’t hold it.

“ _Shit_ ,” he hisses, and then leans down and takes it back before the spreading blood can touch it. He wants to vomit just at the smell.

“Robb?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sorry, I just –”

“You don’t have to,” Theon says, but he doesn’t sound too convinced.

“No. No, I do.” Robb knows he doesn’t sound as sure as he’d like. Hells, he doesn’t want to for that matter. But he has to.

But he doesn’t want to do it next to _them_.

“Right,” he says, “there’s another way.”

“What?”

“It’s snowing outside, and people are downstairs, not here. This is just the first floor. Do – do you fancy a walk?”

Theon stares at him, and Robb can see the moment he understands what he’s asking.

And then – then he moves closer to him and opens the window with his maimed hands, and when he looks at Robb again he’s smiling without showing his teeth, and it’s every bit as nice as his old smile used to be.

“I haven’t _taken a walk_ in a year,” he croaks. “I think I would like that very much.”

“Good. And – you know I don’t want this, do you? If I could –”

“Then maybe it’s good that out of the two of us, _one_ wants it. And while I’m sorry for everything else – I’m not sorry for this.”

Robb still doesn’t know how Theon might want it.

But that’s inconsequential.

He grabs Theon’s hand, helps him out of the window and on the ledge and really, the jump is not even that high and the snow breaks their fall, so other than the cold, it’s all pretty straightforward.

“Should we?” Theon asks, his ruined fingers grasping at Robb’s.

“Yes,” he answers, and they start walking into the incoming snowstorm.


	4. I became the dark in the places where we lived

“Save yourself,” his mother screams.

He’d like to reply, he’d like to say anything, but then the only thing he sees is black as something heavy hits the back of his head.

\--

He opens his eyes again, coughing, and –

He’s alive, Robb realizes, and he has to be because every single bone in his body is screaming in pain.

He’s lying on a cot in a cell – he can see that it’s a dungeon from the one torch on the wall. There’s a chamber pot next to the bed along with a pitcher full of water, and then there’s a not next to it. His wrist is also chained to the wall, but the chain is long enough that he can walk through the cell without a problem – he just couldn’t get out.

He’s quick to reach down and take it, and he opens it with trembling fingers.

_I thought that instead of killing you, it would be best to show you some true hospitality, Your Grace._

Nothing else.

Considering how shaky the penmanship is, Robb figures it’s from Walder Frey. But _what in the seven hells does that mean_?

“Anyone there?” He asks into the void.

There is no answer.

\--

A maid shows up a while later – he doesn’t know how long. The moment he sees her, he rushes to the cell’s bars.

“Please – please, can you tell me what’s going on?”

The maid doesn’t even acknowledge him – she opens the cell, puts a tray with food down on the ground, takes back his empty water pitcher and locks the cell again.

“Wait,” he shouts, but she turns her back on him.

“Wait!”

She doesn’t – she hurries away in the darkness and he’s left there with the tray.

For a moment he debates not eating it, but – if they had wanted him dead, he would have been by now, he suspects.

He eats. It’s mostly stew, potatoes and a few cooked vegetables – not particularly good, but not disgusting either. He drinks some of the water, and he waits.

He falls asleep at some point, and he doesn’t know for how long – there’s no way to count the time. But he thinks it’s been at least a day or close to it when the maid shows up again. He tries to tell her to wait, and then he realizes it’s a different one, but the reaction is the same. She takes back his empty bowls and the chamber pot, hands over a clean one and a new tray with food and water, and then she locks the cell and leaves. Again.

\--

After the fifth time, he doesn’t even try to engage anymore – it’s obvious he will receive no answer. The maids are always different and never even glance at him in the eyes – they must have orders, he figures. He doesn’t receive any further notes, not that he had expected more, and he decides that he has to start planning ahead.

He can’t get out of the cell, but in itself, it’s not small. It’s enough to walk a bit, and he knows even too well that if he sits all the time he might lose strength in his muscles, so he resolves to walk around for a bit at regular intervals, or as many as he can manage. Then he decides he should track the passing of time somehow – he finds a frail piece of rock that leaves a sign on the wall if you scratch it, and he starts scratching every time the maid comes.

Also, he decides that while he has regular food, he’d better not eat everything at once – it’s not that he goes hungry, not properly, but if he doesn’t space it out, he is hungry every time the maid comes and he remembers enough of Luwin’s lessons to know that it’s not a good idea. So he tries to rationalize it – he’ll get stew with few vegetables and potatoes, hard bread and sometimes cheese every time, there’s not much variation. So he always eats the meat at once, it would go bad otherwise, but he keeps the bread for later and the cheese for when he wakes up – he tries to always sleep once and for a long time rather than in small periods of time, even if it’s not easy. Not with the fact that everything is so dark.

He has counted a month before he sees a folded piece of paper next to his stew bowl.

For a moment, he allows himself to feel hopeful – certainly there’s an explanation. Maybe they’ll say why he’s down here. And he’d like to know that, if anything because the more time passes the more he doesn’t like the effects this is having on him – his nails are starting to go brittle, and his hair is too long and too unkempt, along with an uneven beard that at some point has stopped growing out and just itches everywhere. Of course he can’t change his clothes, and he has washed at times with the water they gave him, but he’s no fool – he knows he can’t keep this up for much longer.

But then he opens the letter and the only message is, _I should hope you are enjoying your staying. And I regret to inform you that your sister Sansa is now wanted for treachery_.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Robb falls down on his knees, throws the piece of paper on the ground and forces himself to not smash the tray against the wall – he can’t afford to waste one day’s food.

He eats the stew. He keeps the bread and cheese for the next day.

\--

A week later, the maid brings clean clothes. There’s no bread and cheese in today’s food.

There is no note. Robb changes when she leaves, leaving his dirty clothing in a pile outside the cell, and forces himself to eat as slowly as he can since he won’t be able to have more until tomorrow.

He paces at regular intervals. He tries not to fall asleep. He tries not to think about all the ways things went wrong because he can’t afford to have regrets in this situation, or he will really go mad sooner than later.

He looks down at his nails – they’re all chipped. The skin next to them is completely cracked.

\--

Two months in, and his mouth feels like it’s burning inside out.

Sometimes he spits out blood, though not every day. Still, every inch of flesh inside his mouth feels raw and he can taste copper at the back of his tongue most of the time.

And while he still walks and keeps to his routine, it’s becoming harder. He’s no fool – he knows that he’s getting weaker and eating the same food all the time cannot help. Still, he forces himself to go on with it. Never mind that his wounds from the wedding are still aching, he doubts anyone treated them properly and he has seen the scar he has on his right shoulder, so it’s not making anything better.

Still.

He eats. He paces. He sleeps just once. He scratches at the wall whenever the maid passes by.

\--

Three months in, and he takes the third letter from the tray with shaking hands. A couple of his nails are completely split in the middle and it takes effort to sit up and read it – the maid came just after he walked, and he’s completely spent.

 _Congratulations_ , Lord Stark, it reads. _It seems like Lord Bolton might have just secured his son’s wedding to your sister Arya. I hope you shall take the news as well as he is_! 

“No,” he says out loud. “No, no, _no_ , it can’t be true, it can’t, please tell me it’s not,” he shouts at the empty hallway, but the maid is gone.

He falls down on his knees again, and his trembling hand hits the plate full of stew – it crashes on the ground, breaking into pieces and cutting his hand.

Robb grimaces at how much blood flows out of the cut – it’s shallow, but it’s painful.

And then he sees the back of the letter, pristine white.

He breathes in, touches the wound with his finger. He writes down _why_ in a shaking hand on the back of the note, and then tries to wrap it up with a piece of the dirty shirt he left on the ground two days ago and that no one took back yet. When he’s done, he takes another deep breath and starts grabbing pieces of stew from the ground. He knows it’s hardly ideal, but if he goes one day without eating he might not have the strength to stand up tomorrow and he can’t afford to let go.

The maid takes back the letter the next day.

He’s not surprised that he receives no answer.

Of course he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he tells the empty hallway when the maid goes away with no answer. “I’m so sorry.”

No one hears him sobbing as he says it, and he hopes that Arya stabbed Bolton during the bedding. Not that they’ll tell him, if it ever happens. He also hopes that it wasn’t real and that they just might be trying to make him feel even worse.

He hopes.

But he can’t know, can he?

\--

Sometime after he writes down the sign showing he’s into month four, he’s trying to untangle his hair with his fingers – not that it’s useful at all, but it gives him something to do and he has to concentrate on _anything_ that isn’t how bad he smells or how hungry he feels or how much he misses the sunshine – and he finds himself with a handful of hair into his hand.

He stares horrified at it – it’s long-ish, even if it hasn’t grown out in a month or so, and it’s dirty, and it’s brittle, and he didn’t even tug at it.

Suddenly, he’s really glad he has no mirror, because he doesn’t want to see what’s happening to it overall.

He throws the lock out of the cell, sits down on the cot, breathes deep and then stands up again.

He’s going to walk, and he’s going to keep doing it, and he’s not going to let bloody Walder Frey have the best of him, and if all of his bloody hair falls down _fine_ , he’ll live. It’s just hair. It means nothing.

\--

The maid starts coming every two days five months in.

It takes him a bit to realize it – mostly because he was hungry for too long in between a meal and the other – and it only fills him with dread.

_They’re spacing them out. Maybe two weeks from now on she will come every three days, and then every five, and then once each week, and who even knows that I’m here? Maybe he’s keeping it a secret. And what if he dies and no one else knows?_

If he dies and no one else knows –

 _I’m going to rot to death here in this bloody dungeon_. He wishes he hadn’t come to that conclusion, he wishes it with all his heart, but it seems so very likely, and –

No.

No, he can’t.

He’s going to eat the meat now. The bread tomorrow. The cheese just when he can’t stand the cramps anymore. That should give him enough time. And –

And maybe he should just sleep in between. He doesn’t like it, he doesn’t want to, but every minute he spends sleeping is a minute without his stomach cramping in pain.

Fine. Sleep it is.

\--

As he had imagined, it ruins his carefully built pattern. Of course sleeping more means that he feels less alert than he’d like, and when he walks he stumbles more than he should, and the fact that he can feel his muscles grow weaker with time isn’t helping at all. He loses more hair, though he can feel that he still has more than enough, but whenever he looks at it it’s all dull and brittle. His nails are all splintered and broken and they don’t even grow out anymore, good because he’d probably scratch himself if they did, and sometimes he bleeds from them, and sometimes he still bleeds from his mouth.

 _Gods, I hope I don’t lose any teeth_ is what he’s more worried about these days. He has lost hope in more messages, he knows they won’t come and he doesn’t even want any.

Halfway into month five, he realizes that the food is coming once every three days. The portions are bigger, somewhat, but it’s still once every three days.

He sleeps more. He eats as little as he can and tries to space it out. The clothes he’s sent, always once every two or three weeks, are large on him by now. And it’s cold, though at least he has a couple of blankets that suffice for the moment. He doesn’t even try to talk to the maids anymore.

And sleeping more means dreaming more, and at some point he’s almost glad of the times he wakes up screaming because he’s just seen his mother plead for his life while someone moved close to her with a knife in their hand.

Because they’re still less painful than the times he wakes up crying because he’s just dreamed he was back at Winterfell before everything went to the seven hells. He would kill to just talk to someone, to see any of them one last time – hells, if he could see Theon again right now he’d probably start crying instead of wishing he could take his head.

\--

And then – he doesn’t know how long into his sixth month has been because the maid hasn’t been here for a while and he’s slept at least thrice since the last time she came, he dreams of the bloody wedding all over again, and he shivers so much while he wakes up that he falls off his cot and onto the ground, and tries to slow the fall putting his wrist on the floor, and –

He screams.

It hurts, seven hells, and when he’s finally put himself on his knees he realizes that his wrist his bent all wrong and it won’t slide back into place, which means –

It’s broken, the Others take it.

It doesn’t feel as if it’s broken in more than one place, though, or at least he wants to hope it’s the case.

Because if it’s not –

No.

He’s not going to let himself think that. He’s going to set it back, and he’s going to not use it, and he’ll wait for it to heal, even if _how_ can it heal when he’s not getting enough food for even supporting his weight for more than a few minutes each time he stands up?

Sometimes he thinks he should just let himself die, but it means he should just – starve, and this prolonged agony is already too painful. He can’t imagine actually going through with it.

He breathes in, out, in, out.

What did Father do when Jon broke a bone once when they were kids?

 _I’m going to count to three_ , he had said before setting it, and he hadn’t actually counted to three. He did it when Jon hadn’t been expecting it.

Right, because it was two of them.

 _One, two_ , he thinks, and then he tugs and screams himself hoarse as he feels the bones realign.

Or at least he hopes they did. When it’s done, there are tears covering his face, his mouth tastes like blood – did he bite his tongue? – and he would retch, if there was anything in his stomach he could throw up.

 _They should have just killed me_ , he thinks. He doubts that whatever he did to Lord Walder was worth this, gods.

He curls up on the ground and cries tears he can’t spare against his dirty, bloodied clothes.

He can’t last much longer, he knows it, and still –

 _I don’t want to die here_ , he thinks, and when the maid finally comes he writes down three lines on the wall and chews on his piece of bread as slowly as he can.

\--

It’s a good thing he went very slowly when he noticed that the last tray held a bigger portion than usual, because he’s sure it’s been longer than three days since the last time the maid showed up. He still has the loaf of bread.

But his fingers are shaking so much he doesn’t think he can even hold it up.

 _That’s it_ , he thinks, _that’s it, they’re not sending anyone back, I’m really going to rot here please nonononono don’t_ –

And then he hears noise.

It’s far, and it’s not just someone coming his way. He stands still, not daring to move, and then he hears more noise.

A few moments and – yes. There’s someone with an armor coming into the dungeons.

Good, because whoever it is, if they came to put him out of his misery, he will go for it with open arms.

“Seven hells,” the person says – a man, definitely a man –, “there’s no one here, why did that girl say –”

Oh.

Right.

The maid didn’t come to light up the torch again and so it’s not burning anymore – he hadn’t even realized.

“No,” he croaks, realizing that his voice is barely audible. “No, please, _come back_ ,” he blurts, and he can barely hear himself but the man isn’t leaving anymore.

Or so it seems.

“What was that,” he says, then comes his way with a torch.

Robb could cry.

Hells, he is crying openly as he sees the light come his way.

“I’ll be damned, there really was someone,” the person says, and Robb thinks he recognizes the voice, he’s heard it at some point, but his vision is blurred and he can barely bring himself to wrap his fingers around the bars.

“Please just kill me,” he says, not even looking up.

And then –

“No,” the man says, “ _no_ , he didn’t.”

Robb would like to know who didn’t do what, but then he looks up with the last strength he can muster, and he stares into Jaime Lannister’s shocked face before he closes his eyes and passes out.

\--

Well, in retrospective he entirely does not regret letting his little brother free.

Jaime doesn’t even know how to feel about this entire blasted situation. Back when Brienne brought him to King’s Landing he certainly hadn’t imagined that he’d end up looking for Sansa Stark after joining her instead of going to Riverrun when Cersei asked. He hadn’t imagined they’d find her at the Vale. He certainly hadn’t thought that he’d end up leading a small army to the Twins so they could actually free the Riverlands, but at that point he knew he was labeled a turncloak for real and hells, better doing the right thing as a turncloak than rotting in King’s Landing. The white cloak was always going to soil him, anyway.

But still, he couldn’t imagine that when his father had casually mentioned Robb Stark getting _the fate he deserved_ he had meant anything other than dying in that fucking gruesome way. (Because as far as the realm was concerned, the boy had died.)

He thinks of what he saw in that cell and he wants to feel sick, never mind that since he had been the one going down there after one of the maids broke down in tears and told him to please get the prisoner in the lowest level of the dungeons, he had brought Stark out of the cell and he had felt sick at how little he weighed.

And for that matter, for having spent six months down there, Stark didn’t look that bad – sure, his hands are completely ruined, and there’s blank spots in the middle of his hair, and he’s too thin, and he has a badly set broken wrist, but six months eating once each day in that situation would have killed tougher men.

Jaime looks at Sansa, who’s sitting at the edge of the bed where they put him, and who’s grasping at her brother’s hand while sobbing to herself quietly, and he shakes his head and walks out of the room.

“I can’t believe that was what he meant,” he curses.

“Who meant what?”

He sighs as Brienne leans against the wall next to him.

“My illustrious father. He said that Stark had been dealt with and gotten the fate he deserved when I asked if it was necessary to orchestrate a massacre. Sure as the seven hells I hadn’t imagined he meant _that._ ”

Brienne says nothing and doesn’t move either.

“You’d think killing him would have been enough.” Because as far as Jaime was concerned, it would have been.

“You know this has all to do with him and not with you?”

“And how do you think my illustrious living relatives would take it if I told them that I’m quite glad that my brother paid him a visit before escaping King’s Landing? That’s not how you win wars, hells.”

“And then you insist on making sure people think you don’t have a conscience.”

“Are you _joking_ , wench? And it’s not conscience, it’s _common sense_.”

He’d have kept that argument going, if he hadn’t heard a small groan coming from the bedroom. He turns, looking at the scene – Stark opens his eyes, blinks a couple of times and then closes them again at once the moment he sees that he’s in a sunlit room.

Then he opens them slowly, and Jaime can hear the sharp intake of breath that comes when he most probably realizes he’s not in a dungeon anymore.

And then he obviously realizes that someone is holding his hand, because he turns on his side so very slowly just to find himself face to face with his sister.

“I’m dead,” he rasps after staring at her for a moment.

“Robb, I really think you’re not,” she answers with an equally low voice, her free hand going to his face.

The moment after he closes his eyes and pretty much crumples into her arms, Jaime turns his back at them – he’s not going to pry. It already felt like intruding on something he should have never seen in the first place.

“You shouldn’t look that gloomy,” Brienne says a moment later as she closes the door.

“What?”

“Your father might have done it but you helped fix it, didn’t you? At least for once things have gone – as well as one could have hoped.”

“Wench, I will forever admire your undying optimism,” he sighs in response.

She’s right, but she also hasn’t seen the scene downstairs.

No one gets out of that with all their wits about themselves, in his experience. He really hopes this might be an exception, the boy doesn’t deserve that either, but who even knows. He supposes they just will have to see.

\--

Riverrun isn’t as cold as Winterfell might have been in winter, but it’s still covered in snow and the temperature is still unforgiving. No one would be outside in this weather if they could help it, Sansa thinks as she wraps herself tighter in her furs, but she can understand why Robb wouldn’t care. Since he could stand up on his own he’s spent most of his time out, and when he told her that weather doesn’t matter after not seeing the sun for that long, she had stopped asking him if he shouldn’t take it easier.

He doesn’t look as horrible as he had a few months ago now. His hair is growing anew – the long, tangled locks he had when they found him in the dungeons all fell off in the following weeks and it took little time to shave off his beard – the hair was all dull and brittle. His nails aren’t bleeding out anymore. He’s also not spitting blood half of the time. His wrist still doesn’t move the way it should, but the maester explained it – it had been badly set the first time and by the time he was brought to proper care, it had to be broken and set again, and his bones are still too delicate, but he hasn’t lost use of the hand, so after all it’s not so bad.

Sometimes she still can’t believe he did survive, even if he never talks about the wedding. She hasn’t asked more than once and he doesn’t even speak that much these days, surely less than he did before, but – she can only begin to guess why. He inquired about Bolton having married Arya to his son, but Sansa had assured him that as far as they know it hadn’t been the real one, and the girl that was sent in Arya’s stead had somehow managed to escape. They can’t know more than that, not when they can’t travel because of the snow. It will have to wait. But he had seemed happy enough with the news, and he hadn’t asked any further.

She wishes she didn’t have to agree with Lannister when he says that it’s a miracle he didn’t go mad at all, but – she has to, and she’s not going to let him out of her sight now that finally they’re in the same place again.

“Sansa?”

Robb’s voice breaks her train of thoughts – he still doesn’t sound quite like he should have, but then again she doubts he’s spoken that much in the past year.

“Yes?”

“I don’t – I don’t think I’ve told you yet, but – I’m sorry I didn’t just come to King’s Landing sooner. I should have –”

She moves closer, puts a finger on his lips, and doesn’t tell him that it’s the fifth time he’s apologized for it in the last three months – so sometimes he forgets he’s told people something, but it’s the only thing that’s wrong for now, or at least _that_ wrong, and she’ll ignore it. It’s still soon. And even if it were permanent, it would be of little importance in the great scheme.

“You did your best and everyone knows that, all right? The last thing you should be doing is feeling _sorry_.”

He looks like he wants to protest, but the conversation is interrupted because an orange lands straight on Robb’s head a moment later.

“What –” He starts.

“Just arrived from Dorne,” Lannister says, and _where did he come from_ , she hasn’t heard him at all. “There are more in the kitchens but one of the maids dumped a basket on Brienne who dumped half of it on me and _I_ am not the one who needs to be eating bloody oranges. Catch.”

He throws another couple and Robb catches them both, disentangling his hands from her furs – well, if anything, his reflexes are still as good as they were back in Winterfell.

“Er, thank you?” Robb still sounds like he never knows how he should react whenever Lannister interacts with him or throws him fruit, which he’s done… plenty often for his standards.

“Eat the damned things, Stark,” Lannister answers before stalking away towards the castle.

Neither of them says a thing as they watch him leave.

“You want half?” Robb asks then, his fingers slowly working on peeling the orange off.

“Fine, but I’m doing that. Those nails of yours have barely grown back,” she sighs before snatching it from his hands. She breaks it in half after she’s done and hands it over, looks at how he closes his eyes while he bites down slowly into the fruit, and puts an arm around his shoulder as they both eat their share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tag/sequel to this chapter can be found in part six [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3820291/chapters/23448942).


	5. I love you more than the stars in the sky, but your name just escapes me tonight

Theon’s not there when Jon receives the group of soldiers that came from the Riverlands to join Winterfell’s little army – the Wall might not have fallen yet but the walkers are behind it anyway, most of the army is at the Wall with Stannis as everyone agreed that Winterfell didn’t need as many to defend itself. So as things are, even a few ragged men to add to the few already here are better than nothing.

Still, it’s not like he has any reason to meet them whatsoever – he knows he has just Jeyne to thank for being alive, other than the fact that Jon Snow, resurrected or not, legitimized or not and wielding a shining sword or not, and staying in Winterfell mostly because he doesn’t want to leave it without a Stark in there, is still a better person than most people not related to him ever gave him credit for.

So, he doesn’t even assume that he might go and greet them at some point – if they know who he is, they probably hate him on principle, and if they don’t know, who would even want to have something to do with him? He’s here just because he would be useless to any army, after all, or he’d have gone to the Wall with his sister.

But then Jon summons him directly and he of course goes to meet him – in Ned Stark’s old solar.

 _How the times have changed_ , he thinks as he walks inside – Jon stands up, running a hand through his dark hair with some white strands in it, and Theon can’t help thinking that even if it’s known by now that he’s half-Targaryen, well, he still looks more like the man everyone thought was his lord father than ever.

Even if Ned Stark never looked this tired, and Jon has less than half the years Ned Stark had when he died.

“My –”

“Theon, stop that.”

“Fine. _Jon_. What’s the matter?” He’s still not adjusted to not call _my lord_ people who have some kind of power over him. But Jon asks all the time, so he figures he might get the hang of it at some point.

“Have you seen the men who came yesterday to join our admittedly poor ranks?”

“I heard, but I didn’t see them. Why?”

“Get over here.”

Theon joins him at the window – it shows the yard. There are some ten people in there, sitting on tree trunks. A couple are practicing swordfighting, with less than brilliant results.

“Look at the one sitting in the right corner.”

Theon does, and –

Well, the man stands out, if anything because he’s the only red haired person of the entire bunch.

But then he takes a better look.

“No,” he says.

“No, _how_?” Jon sighs.

“No, I mean, he’s not – he’s _not_ , is he?”

“I think he is,” Jon says, his voice sounding so pained it hurts to hear it.

Theon looks back down again. The hair is longer, and he’s too think, and he can see scars on his hands and face, and the way he holds himself is completely foreign, but – but it can’t be anyone else, can he.

“Then – then why is he there and we are… I mean, you are –”

“He doesn’t remember anything.”

“ _What_?”

“When they came up to me and he introduced himself, I almost did a double take. But he said he was found on the riverbank of the Trident about a year ago, that he didn’t remember a thing let alone his name and he couldn’t impose on the farmers who found him, so he looked for work around the Riverlands until there were news of the White Walkers and he figured he might as well _come here and give his life to a good cause_. I asked him if I reminded him of someone, just by chance, and he said I looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t know. And the voice – it’s him. I know it’s him. And – listen, it kills me to say it, but I can’t do a thing.”

“Sorry, what? He’s your brother, he –”

“He said I was his heir? I know that. Even too well. Why am I here, according to you? But – if it comes out that he’s alive… I wouldn’t be anymore, would I? And – well. I’m positive that out of the two of us, right now, he might not be the person who wants to hold this position. Especially if _he doesn’t recall anything_.”

Never mind that if he doesn’t recall wrong, Stannis wouldn’t be too happy about this. From what he’s heard, he hadn’t liked the idea of someone challenging the crown in the first place, and it’s a miracle already that he likes Jon well enough to trust him as a peer.

 _Damn_.

Jon looks like he might cry, not that Theon can’t understand why.

And then.

“About why you’re here. I need you to talk to him and see if maybe – I mean, I don’t think he’d remember, he doesn’t seem to even recognize the castle at all, but who knows. I can’t do it lest I give him out and create a diplomatic incident.”

“You are aware that all things considered –”

“My heritage doesn’t matter when we’re talking about the North,” Jon sighs. “Not that I care. I’d step away right now if we could afford it, but – we can’t, can we. Anyway, it’s also – I don’t see him talking much to the others. And – he never was like that.”

No he wasn’t. After all, _he_ had come up to Theon and introduced himself first a life ago, hadn’t he?

“I get it,” Theon says. “And – right. If anything I guess I can make it up to him some, even if I couldn’t do that properly if I lived ten times to do it. But– are you really sure that –”

“You talk in your sleep, you know.”

… and they have adjoining rooms.

 _Damn_.

“I hear you saying you think you should have died with him.”

Theon doesn’t even try to deny it.

“I can’t –”

“You should. I wish I could, and I can’t until this whole situation is settled, and that’s just wrong. Just go and – no one can fix anything but there’s a limit to how much I can stomach as far as unfairness goes. All right?”

“… All right,” Theon says after a long pause, and then he nods at Jon and leaves the room. His stomach feels as if it’s been turned upside down and he wants to vomit, and he doesn’t know what Jon’s hoping for – certainly if Robb didn’t remember _his brother_ he’s not going to remember _him_. He walks in front of a broken down mirror in the hallway and glances at himself – no, there’s really no chance it might happen. He’s nowhere near as repulsive as he used to look just after he jumped from the roof with Jeyne – he has filled out a bit, the fake teeth his sister managed to find a maester for before leaving with Stannis’s army have done wonders. Now he doesn’t feel repulsed by his own reflection if he happens to show his teeth in front of a mirror. His now short hair has grown back not as dark as it used to be but at least it’s not white or gray, but that’s about it. If Jon hopes that talking to him might somehow change anything, he’s sorely mistaken.

Still, he goes, because now that he’s seen – he just couldn’t not go. 

First, though, he stops a moment to talk with one of the other men – he’d rather not do it, but there are a few things he’d like to know.

“Ser,” he tells him, “I was wondering. _He_ ,” Theon keeps on nodding in Robb’s direction, “let’s say that he looks a bit like someone I used to know. Did he tell you his name or –”

“Not at all,” the man interrupts harshly. Theon barely manages not to flinch. “He joined up when we left, asked if he could tag along. Says he remembers nothin’ before this last year, not that I think he’s lying. He really doesn’t. And he’s not a bad guy, not from what I see, but – I don’t think I’d bring him along any further.”

“… And why’s that?”

The man shudders. “You haven’t heard ‘im at night. Screams out all the time, says he has nightmares he can’t remember, says straight up weird things during ‘em. At some point he started sleeping far from us ‘cause he’d wake all of us up all the time otherwise. And those scars he has on ‘im? I don’t want to know where he got them. ‘m sorry that he obviously didn’t get it so good, but with the things going on these days, I’d better steer clear.”

“Thank you,” Theon says, using his best demure tone and biting down on his tongue – he knows the feeling, he thinks. Just not on that side.

How ironic, he thinks to himself before going for the right corner of the yard.

The man – _Robb_? – is still sitting on that tree stump, looking down at his hands and looking lost in thought. Theon can’t help thinking that it looks eerily like the first time they properly talked. He had been sulking in the yard, minding his business, a few days after coming to Winterfell, cursing the cold, and Robb had come up to him all wide-eyed and excited and asked –

“Hello,” Theon says, trying not to let his voice get too choked up. “I’m – you look lonely.”

He was about to apologize before, but then some instinct wins out and he just says what Robb had said to him all those years ago.

The man’s hands go still at once – Theon can’t help noticing that they’re roughened up now. And then he looks up at Theon and –

 _Gods, the eyes_. There’s no doubt whatsoever. It’s _him_. Sure, the hair is longer – now it’s up to his neck, falling down in untangled curls, and the short beard hides a couple of _really_ nasty looking scars on his face, as if someone tried to slash a knife in his eyes and just caught the left cheek, but that’s Robb. That’s Robb in the flesh and Theon wants to just fall down to his knees and beg for forgiveness.

He doesn’t know what to expect, truly. Robb looks up at him and it’s fairly obvious there’s no recognition, not at the beginning anyway. But then he stares. And squints. And stares some more, his mouth falling open just a bit.

“I guess that’s nothing new,” he finally answers, his voice sounding just a bit rougher and deeper than it used to.

Now Theon really wants to faint. Because back then, he knows he had answered _it’s nothing that doesn’t happen often_.

He takes a deep breath and a step closer.

“That’s too bad,” he says, his voice just this close to break. “Maybe you’d like a look around the place?”

Robb’s mouth – because that’s Robb, can’t be anyone else – falls a bit more open, and then.

“I – thank you, that would be nice of you. But – why?”

Well, that wasn’t what he had asked. But he had said that first line. _That would be nice of you_.

Damn it.

“If I tell you that I know how it feels to – be lonely in someplace you don’t know? Or someplace you know, for that matter.”

Robb swallows visibly, then stands up from the tree trunk, moves up closer to him. Theon might faint at some point very soon.

And why does he look _hopeful_?

“I – I can see it. But – I think – is there a reason why this conversation sounds familiar?”

Theon will faint at some point soon.

“There – there might be,” Theon says, slowly. “Do you remember anything like it?”

Robb snorts openly, and it sounds _wrong_ on him. “I don’t even remember my name, ser. I don’t remember a single thing from before this past year. But that conversation felt familiar. And now that I – it’s not just the conversation. It’s _you_ ,” he breathes out.

Theon stands very, very still.

“Me?”

“I just – I can’t place it, but – you feel familiar.” And now he downright sounds hopeful. “Please, if – I’ve spent so long wondering who I might be, if you know – if you _know_ –”

Theon is pretty sure he might cry, if he doesn’t really faint first. He breathes in, moves a bit closer, puts a maimed gloved hand on Robb’s shoulder.

“It’s a long story,” he says. And he already knows that he won’t try to keep it from Robb regardless of what Jon thinks, if it comes to that. “I would be glad to tell you, but – not here.” He nods towards the group of men looking at them suspiciously in the corner. And he doesn’t think he wants to do it right under Jon’s window – he suspects that Jon might have hoped that it would work like this, but if he hadn’t – better not.

“All right. Where?”

Theon swallows down and motions for Robb to follow him – he heads out of the yard and towards the castle. He’d have liked the godswood better, but no one knows what lurks in there these days. He tries to stick to the way Robb showed him when he dragged him up to his own room the first time – good thing that no one’s staying there, these days. He walks slowly until they finally reach it – he opens up the door. It’s not locked.

It’s also full of dust – gods, no one’s probably been in here since before the fire that has thankfully not destroyed it.

He dusts the bed off and sits down on it.

Robb doesn’t seem to have recognized the surroundings much. He’s still staring straight at him.

“Here should be good,” Theon says, breaking the silence. “Just – you can sit, you know.”

Robb does, entirely too close for Theon’s taste – not because he doesn’t want it, but because his heart is beating so fast he doesn’t know what to do with it.

And then Theon just can’t stall anymore.

“Fine. I guess – we should start with – I’m Theon,” he says, still staring into Robb’s blue, huge, confused eyes. “And – I guess you don’t know that yet, but you’re –”

“Wait,” Robb interrupts, moving even closer. He reaches up with a hand, his fingertips brushing over Theon’s cheek, his eyes opening up wider, and then he looks like someone who’s trying _really_ hard to recall something, but it’s gone a moment later. He shakes his head, looks back at him and –

“This is going to sound – I don’t know how it’s going to sound.”

“You can’t know until you try it, right?” Theon doesn’t think he can find it in himself to joke about this much more, but Robb’s fingers are still there on his cheek and he wants to cry for how much he missed that and how much he doesn’t deserve it.

“It’s strange,” Robb finally says. “And – it feels kinda wrong, because I look at you and you are familiar and I know this is not how you’re supposed to look.”

Oh gods. Theon opens his mouth to answer, but then Robb shakes his head and goes on, and –

“It’s just – I forgot _everything_ , and I guess I forgot the reason, but I think – I think –”

“You think?” Theon prompts when Robb doesn’t just say it.

“I think I loved you once, didn’t I?”

And –

And it’s just so right and so wrong at the same time, because what the hell is Theon supposed to say to that, _yes you did and yes I did and I do still and more than anyone else in my entire life and it still means I ruined your life and I ruined myself as well and I wasn’t even with you when you were supposed to die and out of everything you remember_ this _, how cruel is it?_

If only he could say any of that.

Instead he doesn’t even try to hold it back – he feels it when he bursts out crying, and he’s thrown his arms around Robb’s shoulders before he’s even thought about it.

“You shouldn’t have,” he sobs as he feels Robb’s hands circle his waist.

“But I did, didn’t I?”

And he sounds so hopeful, and of course he would if it’s the first time he actually recalls something. Theon forces himself to move back a bit, enough to look at him in the eyes, not even trying to dry out his own.

“You did,” he admits, and it’s almost physically painful. “Gods, you did. And I never deserved it. _Robb_.”

“That – that’s my name?” He looks about to cry, too, never mind that he still hasn’t moved his hands from Theon’s waist.

“That’s your name,” Theon agrees, forcing himself not to move either because gods knows he doesn’t deserve to even be touching Robb in the first place when the only thing he wants to do is running his hands all over him just to make sure he’s real all over again. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t just – love you once. I never really stopped,” he admits in a small, frail voice. “And I got it all wrong.”

“Why’s that?” 

He should lie. He should just take the chance for what it is.

But he can’t, not to him, not when he already got so much wrong.

“I suppose I should start from the beginning. Just – tell me everything you recall first.”

Turns out, it’s not much at all. And Robb doesn’t even recall anyone’s face specifically – he says that _he_ felt familiar as a whole but he couldn’t conjure an image to his mind if he tried.

For a moment, Theon wonders if it’s just better to not say a thing at all and not give Robb further trouble, because from what he sees there’s no miracle to hope for – not that he knows much about this kind of situation, but if it’s been this long, if not even being in Winterfell sparked anything and the _I loved you once_ is the most Robb gets… he’s never going to remember much.

But he can’t stand the idea of lying to him or just not coming clean.

Except that he can’t do this alone.

“Very well,” he says, “but the lord of Winterfell should be here for this.”

“Wait, what? Why should he?”

“Didn’t he ask you if he reminded you of someone?”

“He did? But I figured I was a northerner, so I must have known –”

“That’s not wrong, but just – wait a moment.”

Theon goes to the door, sees a guard, tells him to please call Lord Stark here. The guard doesn’t look too happy to do what _he_ asks, but he goes, and Jon’s there a few minutes later. He comes in to find Robb still sitting on the bed, looking as if he doesn’t know to do with himself, and Theon standing near the door.

“Theon, what –”

“I can’t lie to him,” Theon interrupts. “And I can’t – I can’t not say it, Jon. I just can’t.”

He looks at him, figuring that if Jon looks at him in the eyes he might see why. Jon nods once, swallowing down, and then looks back at Robb.

“You’re right,” he admits. “Very well. Let’s do it.”

“What are you two talking about?” Robb finally asks, sounding utterly and completely confused. Not that Theon doesn’t understand it.

“Robb,” he says, “you’re a northerner. And you did know him, but not because he was your lord. He’s your brother.”

\--

They both tell him. Jon looks increasingly pained by how Robb takes it all in without showing that he remembers anything of it, while Theon knows _he_ sounds increasingly pained the more he tells his side of the story.

It takes them a fair amount of time to finally dish it out, and when they’re done Robb just nods, looks down at his hands again and says nothing.

For a while, neither of them speaks.

Then.

“I guess I should leave,” Robb sighs, and –

Theon is sure that the perplexed expression on Jon’s face matches his own, because that was not what either of them had expected.

“What?” Jon says. “No, you don’t have to! Of course not. This is your home, you shouldn’t –”

Robb smiles a pained grin and shakes his head.

“Maybe it was. But – very well. Let’s take into account that everything you said is true, and I don’t think either of you would lie, considering – considering what kind of story you just told me. Let’s assume that at some point you will have to talk to your allies, Lord –”

“ _Please,_ it’s Jon.”

“ _Jon_. Let’s assume that I am around and someone recognizes me the way you did. You said I – I signed a will making you my heir _if I should die_. Didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“So if I am not dead, and people find out, that would put you in an extremely frail position, wouldn’t it?”

“Robb, I don’t really care if – I mean, if it means you’re back here I can deal –”

“No you can’t,” Robb says, and – does he sound pained, too? “I’ve been around the Riverlands and the North for a year. I came here because I wanted to be useful against those – those abominations. The last thing you need would be people weakening your claim. And while I doubt that seeing the situation anyone would think it a smart thing – I remember nothing. Even if I tell them that I want you in charge, if we all survive this, then you should put me back in charge after. I don’t remember a single thing about _any_ of this. Even if I do remember something, it would hardly be enough. And from what I hear, I went and got it completely wrong the first time round.”

“You didn’t –”

“I obviously did. It’s fine. I imagine it makes sense. With – with everything. I shouldn’t be here, and I’m a danger to you if I am, and that’s not what I meant to be when I decided to come here. So – I should leave.”

If only it wasn’t so clear from Jon’s pained expression that he knows Robb’s right. Sure, it did turn out his heritage is a bit more royal than anyone has predicted, but as Jon said once, it doesn’t change that he’s still no legitimate son. Theon doubts anyone would care by this point, but what does he know? Erring on the side of caution can’t hurt.

Fine, then.

“All right, but unless you don’t want me to, I’m coming with you,” Theon says before either of them can keep on with that discussion.

Jon looks completely not surprised by that. Robb, instead, does seem taken aback, but – he doesn’t look like he would loathe the prospect.

“You – you want to?” He asks, his voice barely even audible.

“Didn’t you hear me before? I thought it was obvious.”

“You two sort it out,” Jon says, “I’m going to ask a few things around and come back in a bit. If you have to go, fine, but I’m not letting either of you leave without any sort of plan. Never mind that your sister would have my head, Greyjoy.”

He leaves a moment later, the door closing softly behind him.

Robb turns his attention to Theon again and shit, he looks like he’s about to cry.

This is all wrong.

“Why – why would you assume I wouldn’t want you to?” Robb finally asks.

Theon moves so that they’re standing in front of each other, dares reaching out and take a lock of red hair in between his ruined fingertips.

“After hearing that story, I’m not so sure anyone would be eager to have me with them,” he admits.

“Maybe,” Robb answers, shivering against him. “But that’s not what I remember, is it? And – you didn’t tell me why that entire conversation we had sounded somewhat familiar.”

He can’t help it – he laughs.

“I told you the same things _you_ said to me when I came to Winterfell the first time. I thought it was time to return the favor.”

“Oh. So that was – all right. All right, I – I just, those men I came with, they told you –”

“Robb Stark, if there’s one thing I can assure you, it’s that whatever’s wrong with you  
can’t be any worse than what’s wrong with me. They’d have been equally happy to travel with me, I think.”

He gasps as Robb’s hand gently closes around his left.

“Then I don’t see why I shouldn’t want that.”

He doesn’t know if someone can die of being too happy, but it were to happen right now, maybe he’d understand how it can happen.

\--

They leave the next day. Jon tells him that back when his then-brothers tried to attempt on his life (which was what made him come back, not that he ever talks about it), the ones who didn’t agree had left and went to stay in Mole’s Town. He’s written to them steadily and it looks like they’re doing decently, that there’s food to spare and that they could always use a hand running things, so he and Robb are supposed to go there, hand his letter to one of them and keep in contact. Theon swears that he’ll write as soon as they’re settled. Before they leave, at dawn, no one around to see them, Jon seems to ponder it for a moment before he hugs Robb tight enough to hurt, and Theon chooses not to think about the pained expression on Robb’s face as he clutches back 

(it seems to say, _I wish I remembered you the way you remember me_ )

and they’re off in the cold morning light.

So maybe Theon just looks at Robb most of the time – he could stare forever and never move his eyes for that matter – and Robb doesn’t seem too bothered by the fact that he can’t walk too quickly and obviously slows them both down.

He doesn’t want to hope that whatever respite this brings him it might last – he’s still not sure everyone will survive the Others in the first place – but still, at this point can it even hurt that much?

\--

They find the town, right where Jon said it would be. The men dressed in black manning it read the message, introduce themselves as Pyp and Grenn and tell them as cheerfully as it gets that there’s space for everyone who is Jon’s friend. Theon wants to laugh but ultimately stops himself from doing it – better not push his luck.

They follow them underground until they reach a small house – Pyp tells them it was one of the smaller brothels and one of the first to be vacated, and not many people like it because it has small rooms and it’s better to have as many men as possible in the same place. The message said they should have a secluded place if possible, so he figured they could do with it. Theon thanks him and says it will be perfect, and lets Robb go in and choose a room while Pyp tells him about how to get food and how they’re running things in the place. When Theon has a more or less thorough idea he says they’ll be around to lend a hand in a day at most – Grenn tells him to take it easy and that no one will protest if it takes them two.

He joins Robb inside – he’s picked a cramped room with a double bed and one small dresser, not that it would take more than that for their meager possessions.

That night they share the bed, and Theon wants to cry for how much he had missed anyone next to him at night, and he runs his fingers through Robb’s long, curly hair over and over again as if he has to make sure it’s real every time.

And then Robb’s fingers touch his cheek again, and he stops, and –

“What I said at Winterfell,” he starts, and then doesn’t go ahead.

“That you loved me once? It’s – it’s all right, you know. I wouldn’t ask anyone to even _like_ me now, never mind –”

“It wasn’t what I was saying,” he interrupts. “I said I did. And that I forgot the reason.”

“You did.”

“Well.” He licks his lips, moves a bit closer, a determination in his eyes that makes him look painfully like the person he used to be. “I did, too. And I don’t think I’m going to remember it. But what I wanted to say, it’s that – from what I see, maybe, I can imagine it.”

“Robb –”

“And I wouldn’t be adverse to finding out all over again.” 

Theon’s breath gets caught up in his throat, and – Robb can’t have said that, he can’t look this hopeful at the idea, but he is, he is, and Theon should stop him, he should say that it’s the worst idea in existence, that he doesn’t deserve that, that Robb can’t _know_ –

But he also wants it so much he could burst with it, and he thinks, _I could make this right or at least better and even if he doesn’t know that I’ll know for the two of us_ , and so maybe he doesn’t think on that further when he moves forward and brushes his lips against Robb’s equally cracked ones, and then Robb kisses back tentatively but as if he means it.

Theon doesn’t tell him _and maybe this is one of the reasons I could never not love you_ until they’re breathless and clutching at each other in a bed that would have barely managed to fit them both when they were young and healthy and nowhere as damaged as they are right now, but it’s everything he thinks as their mouths meet over and over again.

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand now that you got through this sadness, [here is the original ending modern AU section](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3820507) that I posted separately. If you want a pick me up in the form of 'reincarnation au with a soulmate plot twist', you might wanna go there and be reassured I still can't end things without throwing fluff at everyone.


	6. BONUS: throbb reunion sequel to chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Theon and Robb have a reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A while ago someone asked me for a sequel to part four of this fic where post-Frey-imprisonment!Robb met Theon again and I figured I'd slam this here because I didn't want to turn it into a series and it wasn't standing on its own enough to need to be posted separately. Here we go have fun and have some extra-less angst.

“Robb said he wants to see you.”

Theon hadn’t even heard Sansa come in the small room he’s been in since they all regrouped at the Wall a few days ago - he had gone with Stannis, Jeyne, his siter and Snow from Winterfell, she had come from Riverrun along with her Vale army, Jaime Lannister and - _and_.

He still can’t believe Robb is alive.

“What?” He almost loses balance as he turns to look at her.

“He spoke with Jeyne. I mean, he - you know they kept him locked in that cell for six months. But they bothered to inform him that I was wanted for treason and that Ramsay Bolton had married _Arya_ Stark. He _knew_  that it wasn’t really Arya and that you got out, we had news, but he still wanted confirmation. She told him that _you_  saved her. And - he’s been adamant that he wants to _see_  you.”

“He can’t _want_ that.”

“I think he knows what he wants. And he hasn’t been - _adamant_  about a lot of things since we found him again.”

That’s - that’s already something that makes him worry, because Robb _not_  being adamant about what he wants in general is so _not_  like the person he used to know. But then again -

Then again, Theon can relate even too well, can’t he?

“If - of course I’d see him. I didn’t presume he ever would want to, but -”

“Don’t worry. He does. He’s - he’s out now. I mean, he took the lift up to the top, you’re going to have to go there.”

“That’s - that’s quite all right. I can imagine why he would be there.”

After all, he _entirely_  understands the appeal of standing up on a piece of rock with an entire expanse of land in front of you, cold air touching your face and the open sky ahead. Oh, he does.

He grabs a cloak so that he doesn’t freeze, it’s not as if he can afford it in his present condition, and follows her out.

Sansa says nothing as they go through the hallway, but then when they’re almost out and he can see Castle Black’s yard outside the door, she stops, takes a deep breath and turns to look at him.

“Theon, I - I don’t know what he wants to tell you. I think he isn’t holding anything against you. I wish I could, but after what Jeyne told me and what passed down, and given what we have to face _now_ , I don’t think I have it in me. But - since we found him - he’s been _well_  all things considered, but I don’t think any of us could understand a fraction of what’s going on with him. But it seems like _you_  can, regardless of the reasons, so - I barely even know what I’m trying to ask of you here, but - I just wanted you to know.”

“Don’t worry, I think I understand,” Theon answers, because he can indeed imagine what it is that she meant. “I’ll - if he doesn’t push me down, I’ll see if he wants to talk about it.”

“He wouldn’t. And thank you.”

He doesn’t tell Sansa that _he_  wouldn’t want to talk about it to anyone, but if Robb wants to the _least_  he’d owe him would be to listen, wouldn’t it?

He tells whichever black brother manning the elevator that he needs a ride. Sansa confirms that. The man shrugs and lets him in - they ride up slowly until they’re finally on top, and when Theon steps out of it he can’t help stopping for a moment and thinking that the sight is _really_  breathtaking. Even if it’s freezing, he can imagine why someone would rather be here.

And then he sees _him_  in the distance.

Mostly, he sees the red hair that completely breaks the white, black and grey expanse in front of him. Robb is sitting on the ramparts, his cloak wrapped around him, and he’s staring ahead and definitely hasn’t noticed anyone else coming in.

Theon swallows once, twice, and then walks slowly forward. He stops just when he’s close enough to be heard if he speaks, but then Robb obviously hears him coming and he turns to his right slowly and looks up at him.

_Seven fucking hells_ , Theon thinks, _what have they done to you_? It’s not that he looks anywhere like _him_  and Theon’s happy for it, truly, but - his hair is still bright red but there are a few streaks of white in it that no one of _eight and ten_  should have, there are a few lines on his forehead and cheeks that make him look ten years older than he actually is, his uncovered hands are a mess of scar tissue around the nails, even if the nails are actually _there_ , thank the gods, and one of his wrists is bent slightly wrong.

He can relate. He can relate even too well. And the bare thought that it happened to _Robb_  who’d have never deserved such a thing in his entire life is making his head spin, so maybe he’ll just - avoid mentioning it.

“Robb?” He asks, and gods, if he had thought he’d have reason to see him _again_  -

“Theon?” Robb’s eyes go wide for a moment before he stands up slowly - Theon tries to figure out how much thinner he is, but the cloak and clothes kind of prevent it.

The fact that Robb has recognized him at once shouldn’t warm him so, but - he’s well beyond pretending that it doesn’t matter to him.

“Yes,” he says, coming a bit closer. “I’m afraid it’s not - the best shape you might have seen me in.”

“I could say the same, couldn’t I?” Robb answers, moving right in front of him. He looks sad, but - not angry? “I spoke with Jeyne,” he says, his voice so low it’s barely audible.

“So - you know?”

“I know what she told me.”

Theon decides that he can’t go on until he actually says it out loud and has it out of the way - then Robb can decide what to do with it.

“Robb, listen, I - I never started out thinking I’d have to turn my back on you. I thought my father would accept the alliance. He didn’t, and I couldn’t handle it, and I hurt you and your family in ways I can’t begin to apologize for, and I just - when I heard you had died I just - when I jumped with Jeyne, just before, I had _known_  that I should have been with you all along and I know I can’t possibly make it up to you -”

“You don’t have to,” Robb cuts him abruptly. Theon stops dead in his tracks and looks at him in the eyes - gods, does he _mean_  it?

“I do, I -”

“She told me. And - you shouldn’t have had to pay for it like that.”

“ _What_?”

Robb shrugs and holds out his hands before reaching out and taking Theon’s in between his, maimed fingers and all - he looks like he’s about to cry. And his _own_  hands are complete mess of scar tissue, worse than it had looked the first time. “I only - they only kept me there. At least. And - it was - I don’t even know how to put it into words. I _can’t_. No one deserves half of _that_  and you had it worse. I couldn’t. At times I was so hungry I thought I could eat my own damned fingers, I can’t -”

“If I told you I _did_  eat a rat out of hunger once?” Theon blurts out, and he doesn’t even know _why_  he said it or how he found it in himself to, because he had sworn to himself he’d never share that with a living soul for how shameful it was thinking about it with a clear had.

There’s just raw understanding on Robb’s face, though. “I’d say I understand the feeling even too well,” Robb says quietly. “You know, I think - I don’t really remember it completely. I _can’t_. After two months, it was just - too much. But at some point I was so homesick I thought I’d just break down crying if _you_  out of everyone had suddenly appeared and I could see someone familiar.”

Theon doesn’t even try to move his hands away as he feels his eyelids burn - he thinks a few tears fall down and get frozen on his face before they even fall. “I should have been with you all along,” Theon just says instead.

“How - how long has it even been?” Robb asks then, his hands gripping at Theon’s a bit tighter. “Sorry, I, I really can’t seem to keep time straight even if it’s been months since they found me.”

“I couldn’t do it either,” Theon confesses, his fingers gripping back. “Since I left for the islands? Almost three years.”

“Gods, I thought - never mind.”

“That it had been a lot less, didn’t you?”

“You - you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“I wish I didn’t. And I wish _you_  didn’t more than that.”

Robb sends him a look that’s almost _relieved_ , and then he bites down on his lip softly.

“Do - do you think we could just sit a while? It’s - it’s nice up here.”

“It’s gorgeous up here,” Theon replies. “I can understand why you’d like it. It’s just - the entire contrary, isn’t it? Anyway, of course. You don’t even have to ask.”

Robb nods once, twice, but doesn’t quite let go of his hands yet, and -

Theon shouldn’t presume and a part of him is saying _stop you don’t deserve this you don’t deserve him being this nice to you you deserve nothing of this_ , but he doesn’t listen to it as he tugs Robb forward just a bit and - years ago he did this when they received news that Ned Stark died. It’s just weird that when Robb puts his arms around Theon’s shoulders _he_  is the one with a hand at the small of his back holding him up (he didn’t even know he had the strength for it but it seems like he _does_ ), and that _Robb_  is the one with his face pushed in the crook of his neck (he hopes he can’t feel the bones underneath too much), but -

But he understands it even too well, doesn’t it?

Maybe they shouldn’t _sit_  just yet. He looks over Robb’s shoulder where sunlight is hitting the ice stretching in front of them and he can almost see a whole pale rainbow in there if he stares hard enough, and he grabs at him tighter and maybe he’ll tell Robb later that this is the first time in years when he’s felt at peace almost completely. 

But not just now.

 

End.


End file.
